• "I near the end of my half-life. Whoever reads this remember me, as the man who lived dead." A tortured man, about 30 years old was in a dirty, rat infested cell. The bars were rusty and everything black as pitch. Souls died in this place, and no one would know, nor care. Angels watched as men were cut, bruised, mutilated. Taunting the poor beings. God was a folktale that the prisoners told themselves for entertainment.

    Dirt and blood covered this man from head to toe, and he was wearing nothing but rags. His wounds were deep and infected, being medicated by maggots that he found living in a crack in his cell.

    "I can never tell you my name." he wrote. "As I write this, the last memoirs of my life in this world down on parchment, I know I will die in this hell. I've come to terms with that. Men grow mad in these cells and I've seen it happen. It's really more or less of the recreation that kept me somewhat amused."

    "It's a slow process, slow and mind bending. First they try to remain strong. They pray to their savior. As I watched them do this, half of me laughed. Savior? Hmph, what savior? When you face your judgment, will he have mercy? God only helps the loons that give up their lives for him. He has pride, the same sin he cursed us with and then later punishes us for; hypocrisy."

    The man stopped and carefully looked over his writing. His eyes darted from side to side, correcting and revising impatiently. He was a skilled writer, and that was clear.

    "Then, they feel the grip of fear tightening like a Black Mamba's strike, squirming inside them like a parasite. Their hope lost, their faith destroyed. You can see it in their dialated eyes. Child-like innocence they never exhibited since they were first out of their mother's womb. This is only the beginning of a long and painful realization."

    The man's eyes seemed diluted as they usually were. The blue shined in the slivers of sun shining from the dilapidated rooftop above.

    "The next step is always my favorite part; insanity. Every essence of humanity is lost. Some become psychopaths, others paranoid, and others still sociopaths. Still others grow truly mad, genocide is a dream they long to fulfill. Society payed them with this life, they feel they should at least return the favor. They grow to have a fetish with blood and they become sadistic. The smell, taste, and life in blood is the most addicting thing in creation."

    At this the nameless man stopped writing. Thinking of the life he left behind.

    "Now you're wondering how I got myself into this. This is a long story, I had gotten myself into much debauchery. My wife, my beautiful wife that I once loved so dearly, the same one that only tried to help me, was the person I saw as my greatest enemy. I just had enough of her interventions that I decided to get rid of her and her meddling. I went on a killing spree after that. The high of adrenaline outweighed the guilt of the murders. The fateful day came when I got caught. I gave this life to myself."

    "They would torture me often and in unimaginable ways. The pain was a constant reminder of the life that was continuously coursing through my veins . I was not alone in this torture. I watched in fascination as they struggled. Their bodies would tremble, shudder, and they'd cry for forgiveness. I was not foolish enough to ask for forgiveness, not now."

    "I've led a life I wish I could extinguish. A life I wish I never cursed the world with. I know not a way to do such, but I know a way this nightmare can end, and that's only if I do. With this, I say to you, humble reader. Remember me as the man who lived in Lucifer's trance."

    The cell opened to reveal a man with a black mask covering his face. With arms like gold and a chest of steel he roughly escorted the tortured man out of his cell.

    He stood military-style as the masked man fixated rusty shackles around his bony ankles.

    They walked down the isle and the prisoner peered into the cells of his fellow inmates and soon to be dead men.

    A door opened and he was greeted by more masked men in a chamber. There was one bloody stone platform big enough so an average sized man could lay and submit to pain.

    "You know why you're here." One of the men in the chamber stated. He wasn't as muscular as the masked man leading him down the isle, but he seemed tough enough to manage. His arms were hairy and scarred from blades and other foreign weapons.

    "I do."

    "You get the Eagle."

    At this he was forced on a platform. The prisoner screamed in agony as the back of his beaten skull hit the cold stone.

    One of the men came nearer and nearer with a jagged blade.

    Slowly and surely he felt him carve into the flesh of his torso. He violently pulled aside the skin to reveal flesh, bones, and barely living organs. Death by infection, if not by the pain of the torture itself was imminent.

    More men came and as the man was screaming bloody murder, pulled out his ribs. Violently one after the other. The cracking of the bones could be heard in an echo through the chamber and blood flooded the ground. The thick red color compiled to resemble the ink of an octopus.

    The man couldn't stop screaming, the horrid chill of death crawled near.

    Together the men slowly grabbed the lungs of the victim and began pulling. The open torso was bleeding incredibly. The man screamed louder and louder still in deep agonizing pain. He looked back at his life, how he wasted it. A beautiful world he could've discovered, but he threw it all away. The lungs were being pulled more and more, it seemed the men would never stop, but they did. They put the lungs on the ribs of the dead carcass as if on display. Forming what looked like the wings of an eagle.

    He wasn't the only prisoner who discovered this fate. Numerous before and after him suffered this and they will not be the last.

    In his cell lay his memoirs, which remain to be undiscovered.